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2013 ARBEITSPAPIER – WORKING PAPER 141 Godwin Kornes Negotiating 'silent reconciliation' The long struggle for transitional justice in Namibia ARBEITSPAPIERE DES INSTITUTS FÜR ETHNOLOGIE UND AFRIKASTUDIEN WORKING PAPERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND AFRICAN STUDIES AP IFEAS 141/2013 Herausgegeben von / The Working Papers are edited by: Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Forum 6, D-55099 Mainz, Germany. Tel. +49-6131-3923720; Email: [email protected]; http://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de http://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/92.php Geschäftsführende Herausgeberin / Managing Editor: Eva Spies ([email protected]) Copyright remains with the author. Zitierhinweis / Please cite as: Godwin Kornes (2013) Negotiating 'silent reconciliation': The long struggle for transitional justice in Namibia. Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (Working Papers of the Department of Anthropology and African Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) 141. <URL: http://www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/Dateien/AP141.pdf>. Godwin Kornes: Negotiating 'silent reconciliation': The long struggle for transitional justice in Namibia Abstract / Zusammenfassung After more than a century of colonial rule, Namibia became an independent nation-state in 1990, since then ruled by the erstwhile armed liberation movement, SWAPO. During its 23 year-long guerrilla war against South African occupation, SWAPO was rocked by a series of internal crises and violent purges, which – just as the wide range of human rights abuses committed by the apartheid regime – have never been officially investigated. Instead, SWAPO issued blanket amnesty for both sides of the conflict and a Policy of National Reconciliation, which is based on a commitment to closure for the sake of nation-building. However, during the first years of independ- ence state security organs committed new violations which are widely seen as the expression of a ‘legacy of political violence’ under persistent impunity. In order to enforce accountability for the violations before and after independence, Namibian human rights activists continue to lobby for transitional justice procedures to be in- stalled, culminating in a highly controversial appeal to the International Criminal Court. This paper not only chron- icles this long struggle for transitional justice, but also serves to critically engage with SWAPO’s practice of ‘silent reconciliation’, which turns out to be more dynamic and accommodating than usually assumed. Nach mehr als hundert Jahren Kolonialherrschaft wurde Namibia 1990 unabhängig und wird seitdem von der ehemaligen Befreiungsbewegung SWAPO regiert. Während ihres 23jährigen Guerillakrieges gegen die südafri- kanische Besatzungsmacht kam es in den Reihen der SWAPO zu mehreren internen Krisen und ‚Säuberungsak- tionen’. Die dabei begangenen Menschenrechtsvergehen wurden – genau wie die massiven Verbrechen des Apartheidregimes – nie offiziell untersucht. Stattdessen wurde im Zuge der Unabhängigkeit eine Generalamnes- tie für beide Konfliktparteien ausgehandelt und eine nationale Versöhnungspolitik verkündet, die durch das 'aktive Vergessen' der gewaltsamen Vergangenheit charakterisiert ist. Gleichzeitig kam es jedoch auch nach der Unab- hängigkeit zu Menschenrechtsvergehen durch staatliche Sicherheitsorgane, was vielfach als Ausdruck eines 'gewaltsamen Erbes' des Befreiungskrieges gewertet wird. Die Fortdauer der Straflosigkeit wurde und wird von namibischen Menschenrechtsaktivisten mit einer Vielzahl an Maßnahmen bekämpft, die zuletzt in einem kontro- vers diskutierten Antrag an den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof gipfelten. Diesen langen Kampf um transitional justice in Namibia darzustellen, ist ein Ziel dieses Artikels. Gleichzeitig wird die von der SWAPO angewandte Praxis der 'stillen Versöhnung' untersucht, die sich als weitaus dynamischer herausstellt, als dies in der For- schungsliteratur bislang anerkannt wurde. The author: Godwin Kornes is a doctoral student at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. In the context of his dissertation project he is researching practices of national commemoration in Na- mibia, with a thematic focus on museums, memorial sites and communal memory events. E-Mail: [email protected] List of abbreviations AI Amnesty International BWS Breaking the Wall of Silence CAT United Nations Committee Against Torture CP Committee of Parents FFF Forum for the Future ICC International Criminal Court ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross ICTJ International Centre for Transitional Justice NCTJ Namibian Coalition for Transitional Justice NDF Namibian Defence Force NSHR National Society for Human Rights PCN Parents Committee of Namibia PLAN People’s Liberation Army of Namibia SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organisation SWATF South West African Territorial Force TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa UN United Nations UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNITA União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola AP IFEAS 141/2013 Negotiating 'silent reconciliation': The long struggle for transitional justice in Namibia1 “… reconciliation is a long haul and depends not on a commission but on all of us making our contribution. It is a national project after all is said and done.”(Desmond Tutu, TRC Final Report, 1998) Introduction: The ICC submission of the National Society for Human Rights In November 2006 a Namibian NGO, the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR)2, filed a submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by the former liberation movement, now ruling party, South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). The incidents in question occurred both during SWAPO’s war of liberation against apartheid South Africa (1966-1989) and after independence, in the course of several military operations in the northern and north-eastern regions of Namibia (1994-1996; 1998-2003). The NSHR’s submission sparked heated debates on the question of how to come to terms with the atrocities committed both by the apartheid regime and the liberation movement. Much of the controversy was caused by the fact that the NSHR explicitly incriminated several high ranking representatives of SWAPO, due to “their respective command responsibility vis-à-vis the serious and well-documented systematic, persistent and widespread perpetration of the crimes of enforced disappearances, torture and other grave breaches of customary international law” (NSHR 2006:2). Those indicted by the NSHR were the former Deputy Commander of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) and Chief of Defence Force until 2006, Solomon Hawala, former Minister of Defence (1998-2005) and current Minister of Works and Transport, Erkki Nghimtina, former commander of First Battalion / NDF (1994-1996), Thomas Shuuya and, most prominently, SWAPO’s icon of the liberation struggle, Sam Nujoma. Nujoma, co-founder and long standing President of the party (1960-2007), became Namibia’s first President after independence. He served three terms until 2005 and was accorded the official title Founding Father of the Namibian Nation by an act of parliament the same year. While the occurrence of the violations is by and large uncontested and representatives of SWAPO have occasionally signalled repentance and offered individual apologies (Kornes 2010:44; Tötemeyer 2010:122-3), no institutionalised measures of investigation have been implemented by the state. Regarding the pre-independence violations, this has to be seen in 1 This article is based on my M.A. thesis (Kornes 2010) for which I conducted four months of field research in Namibia in 2008, supplemented by follow-up research during 2010-2012. I wish to thank the Sulzmann Foundation Mainz, the Scholarship Foundation Rhineland-Palatinate and the German Academic Exchange Service for partly funding my research, as well as Oiva Angula, Pauline Dempers, Samson Ndeikwila and all my interlocutors for their much appreciated cooperation, especially Phil ya Nangoloh for giving me a copy of the original ICC submission; staff at the University of Namibia, the National Archives and the National Library for their immense helpfulness; as well as everyone who commented on various drafts of my thesis and this paper, which has been presented at the 4th European Conference of African Studies in Uppsala in 2011. Since my original thesis was published in German, this paper shall serve the purpose to make my research available for an English- speaking audience. At the same time it can be seen as an addendum, introducing new research findings and engaging more profoundly with the discourse on transitional justice in Namibia. 2 The NSHR changed its name to Namrights in September 2010. For reasons of clarity and coherence I will in the following continue to speak of the NSHR, especially since the ICC submission was filed under that name. 2 AP IFEAS 141/2013 context with the declaration of a Policy of National Reconciliation by SWAPO in 1989 and the subsequent adoption of blanket amnesty in the course of the transitional process. In the words of SWAPO policy-makers, the Policy of National Reconciliation is “the bedrock upon which our constitutional order is built” (Iivula-Ithana 2007), aiming at facilitating “peace and stability in a country that had been divided by apartheid policies for so long“3, by means of a collective effort “to close a dark
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